Copenhagen Store Playtype Is A Font Geek’s Dream

Stores // Travel

What do you do if you run a design agency and self-styled “font forge” but want to make sure your employees don’t get bored of what can ultimately be quite slow-paced and academic work? Well, if you’re Copenhagen-based agency e-Types, you open a concept store to show off your staff’s skills to the wider world.

Playtype is a small glass-fronted room on Vaernedamsvej in Copenhagen’s achingly cool Vesterbro, where you can commission fonts created by e-Types’ designers or pick up some of the stuff they’ve already made, which line the walls and lie on the great big dining table in the center of the room. Everything is brilliantly crafted: we’re talking beautifully minimalist notebooks, gorgeous handle-less coffee mugs with capital letters printed on them, some canvas tote bags, bottles of sparkling wine, and great framed posters embossed with letters or limited-edition artwork by Mads Lynnerup, so although the selection is pretty small, we’re all pretty much spoilt for choice.

If we ever move to Copenhagen, we’ll probably treat the place like our second office, hanging out there every day until they kick us out. But until then we’ll just put those coffee mugs on every Christmas and birthday wish-list until we have a full set. And maybe one day we’ll find enough space in a suitcase to bring back one of those letter posters…